Chapter Eleven: Nightfall, the Backrooms, and Entities

After a long night’s sleep, Jiang Wan’s drowsiness gradually faded. She opened her eyes, and Bi Fang’s figure was right in front of her.

She reached for the gun at her waist—it was still there.

“How strange… I clearly remember placing the gun beneath me before I slept…” She hesitated for a moment. Yet Chen Qing, lying beside her, was still fast asleep. If anyone had come, they both would have been dead by now.

She shook her head and nudged Chen Qing awake.

“Hm? What is it?”

“It’s time to get up…”

He stretched out his limbs, still groggy with sleep, and asked, “So… what do we do next?”

“Let’s check the fourth door… then figure out how to get out of here?”

She bowed her head, trying to clear her mind.

“Oh… right.”

Once their minds had cleared, the two of them made their way toward the fourth door.

When they reached it, Jiang Wan patted her arm. “Check again—are you sure we really can’t pry this lock open? If it’s impossible… I’ll shoot.”

He frowned, seeming a bit hesitant.

But as he stepped up to the door, he discovered that the lock had already been closed. The mechanical components had been dismantled, and the electronic lock’s power source was cut off.

He frowned deeply, unease gnawing at him.

He gently pulled the door—sure enough, it swung open.

Beyond the door, the scene was utterly unlike what lay behind them. Past the threshold stretched a long, narrow corridor, lit with shadowless lamps, about one and a half meters wide. Every twenty meters or so, the passage took a sharp turn.

The two exchanged a glance and continued inward.

They walked for a long time—half an hour, perhaps—before reaching the corridor’s end, where a door stood. To the right of the door was a window.

They crept closer, and as they approached, the sounds from beyond the door seeped into their ears.

The guttural roars they heard amplified their growing sense of dread.

They edged sideways to the window and were met with a hellish sight.

Hundreds of black-robed figures clustered around an altar, heads bowed, eyes closed. Their fingers interwoven, fists pressed to their chests.

Peering past the crowd, Jiang Wan saw what was happening atop the altar.

“Prayers.”

The people below the altar chanted in low voices.

“Evil spirits endure, and life is prolonged…”

With these words, those victims they had seen the night before—and perhaps more—were now bound to the altar’s edge, dragged one by one to the center.

At the sight of the woman being brought up, the crowd erupted with wild excitement.

They shrieked and howled, and Jiang Wan suddenly noticed her companion trembling beside her.

“What’s wrong?”

“I… I don’t know.”

He didn’t answer further, but below the altar, the frenzied crowd raised their hands high, biting off their own knuckles to throw them higher, desperate for attention.

On the altar, beside the bound victim, stood a manager draped in a crimson cloak, carefully choosing among the crowd.

After a moment’s wait, he pointed to the maddest of them all.

That man tore away eighty percent of the flesh from his own arm, swinging it about, then dashed onto the altar, knelt fervently, and kissed the feet of the one in red.

He threw back his cloak, bringing his nose close to the red-clad figure.

“Is… is that a Medical Bureau inspector?!”

Jiang Wan’s face went ashen as she looked toward the people below the altar.

“They…”

Before she could finish, the ritual began.

The crimson-robed figure seized a knife and approached the woman bound to the altar. The chosen one followed, lying flat, eyes closed in rapture.

“She… I remember her body… she was withered from ALS…”

Jiang Wan’s hand flew to her gun, her face paling.

“Hey! If I charge in, can you protect yourself?”

He cried out, but hesitated. “But if you… if you rush in like that… all the cultists below will swarm you.”

Chen Qing stared at the scene, lost in thought. This group was utterly deranged, but somehow it felt like the natural order of things. After all, humanity, driven by self-interest, rarely spares a thought for the fate of another.

In a flash, the crimson-robed figure brought the knife down. Steel gleamed, and the woman’s head was severed, arterial blood soaking his red cloak.

Perhaps that’s why he chose red.

He stepped forward, gazing at the selected devotee, and sang out:

“The living! Persevere in your existence!
Revel in songs that last through the night! Revel in the nourishment of flesh and blood offered by the masses!
The living… the living, savor the suffering and torment that belong to the living alone.
Medals and rewards arrive with agony—live, and you shall live as the dead do, forever.”

He spoke softly, then severed her arm, then her remaining limbs, then split her skull, then sliced her spine.

He touched the flawless white brain, and carried it to the victim.

He laid down the brain, the spine, and then—limbs began to grow from the remains.

A head formed, then a face, bearing a terrifying look of yearning.

She whimpered, snatched the blade from the crimson-robed man’s hand, and in a moment’s silence, cut off her own left pinky finger.

“Pain! It is our greatest glory!”

She shrieked, and outside the door, Jiang Wan was drenched in sweat.

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that a missing persons case would reveal such horrors.

Can they really extend their lives by sacrificing others?

Her face grew deathly pale. She dared not even think how many in the Prosecutor’s Office were still clean.

“Do you think… we could cooperate with this organization, too?”

Her expression changed dramatically as she turned to the man at her side.

“Why… are you looking at me like that? I was joking… just a joke.”

He muttered, but the look in his eyes was no jest.

Both were lost in thought when suddenly, the ritual inside halted.

They looked up—to see the crimson-robed man pressing his face tightly against the window.

He licked the glass, and the cultists beside him did the same.

“This… the Academy… the kitchens…”

Her face blanched; beneath their robes, they still wore the same uniforms.

They weren’t even trying to hide.

Her expression ashen, she raised her gun and aimed.

She glared coldly at the figure before her, warning, “Stop right now! Surrender! There’s still time to wait for the judge’s verdict! Or else I’ll—”

But before she could finish, the door beside her swung open.

She turned, but a heavy blow struck her neck.

As she struggled, she caught a glimpse of everything out of the corner of her eye.

“How… could this be…”

In the last moments of consciousness, she saw Chen Qing’s face.

He was smiling, striking Jiang Wan’s neck with a steel pipe.

“Oh? And you are…”

Behind the window, the crimson-robed man seemed utterly unmoved.

“I! I have witnessed your miracles! Let me… let me join you! Let me join!”

He howled, pressing his left hand to the glass. His expression shifted, and he began smashing his right hand with the steel pipe—over and over—until blood covered the glass, and bone and flesh mingled in a pulp.

The person across the window smiled faintly.

“How interesting… what’s your name?”

He hesitated, pain twisting his brow. “My name… my name is Chen Qing.”

…

In the depths beyond this door, unlike the altar’s chaos, another door led to a world of eerie silence.

These people were not like the frenzied members; their eyes and demeanor were more like ordinary workers.

Within this room stood three large red tables and chairs, arranged at odd angles.

On the tables were dozens of yellowed documents.

Seated before these files were several researchers.

“Have you studied what these terms mean?” A young man with a scarred face asked from the first table. “According to this record, all you have to do is offer these names to the shrine, and you’ll receive a corresponding reward. But these back rooms should be completely separate—why can the same name grant wishes in other back rooms, too?”

An elderly man shook his head, his expression detached. “Perhaps the syllables of these words represent certain entities. We make wishes to the shrine, seeking the abilities of these entities, and the shrine then bestows the traits of those entities upon the supplicant.”

“Entities?”

“Yes, in fact, we always believed these three names each signified an entity. But later, after experimentation, we found that a very few individuals could survive for a short time after wishing for two entities simultaneously. Perhaps these terms mean something else as well.”

The scarred man stroked his chin, deep in thought.

On the note before him, it read: “Recite ‘Mazha,’ ‘Gleen,’ and ‘Feema’ to the shrine, offer the bones of millions, and it shall help your dreams come true.”

The second note was clearly a staff record.

“Year (redacted), first experiment complete, ‘Mazha’ wish fulfilled. The following is the subject’s account:
‘Withered bones by the thousands, rotting flesh, the corpses of a thousand—by these I pray for Mazha’s power to be granted to me.’
Afterward, the subject survived thirteen days, exhibiting a strong sense for the back rooms.”

“Time: (redacted)
Location: (redacted) Institute
Subjects: 136.
Results: 13 survivors.
Summary: Once the shrine’s requirements and conditions were clarified, survivorship increased. Two more keywords identified: ‘Gleen’ and ‘Feema.’
Prayer changed to: (redacted)
Gleen greatly increases the supplicant’s healing speed, with no adverse effects found so far.
Feema dramatically enhances speed.
(Feema seems to resemble the bark of a certain dog-faced creature in the back rooms.)”

While he studied the documents, the commotion outside seemed to draw nearer to the inner door.

The old man frowned, but seemed uncertain what to say.

The scarred man gazed at the door and sighed softly.

“What’s wrong?” the elder asked, but when he stood, his eyes were full of shadows.

“Nothing. I’ll go take a look.”

He watched as the man stood upright in the room, his colleagues collapsing one by one around him.

Suddenly, realization dawned on the old man.

“You…”

He gritted his teeth, but his body was too heavy to support him any longer.

The man gathered the papers, hiding a blank sheet at the bottom into his pocket.

He opened the door and walked step by step toward the altar.

He pushed past the crowd, ignoring their madness.

He arrived at the edge of the altar.

…